kevin lim . social cyborg . cyberculturalist . edupunk . futurist

CurrentStatus: I knew blogging was good for something…

What’s Kevin up to now? You’ll just have to watch this space… (Equipment sponsored by ETC)

Currently Drinking
The new Italian Roast Iced Coffee @ Starbucks (UB North Campus). It’s $2.25, but it’s good to the last drop!

Currently Producing
Thanks to the ETC (see top photo), I managed to do two interesting interviews over Skype yesterday. In the morning, I spoke with Matthew Chen of Megite.com, the latest news aggregator on the Web 2.0 block. He shared his impression on why Megnite was unique and spilled the beans on how they were planning to get ahead of the memetracker crowd with pretty powerful user-oriented features (think Memeorandum + Digg!). In the afternoon, I chatted with one of three founders of the FluWiki, DemfromCT, about the impact of bird flu virus H5N1 on America and how it actually unites the world in a common cause. We also talked about how FluWiki got started (how did it succeed where other wikis fail?) and how ideas of trust and reputation were recognized and transferrable in unexpected ways. My friend MrBig asked why was I doing all this… I’m not sure myself. I don’t get paid, I don’t get academic credit for it, so I guess I just enjoy it even though I know I’m not the best interviewer in the world. I’m cleaning up the Ums and Ahs now, so just watch out for them real soon. If you subscribe to my blog, you’ll get the interviews as podcasts when they are posted.

Currently Receiving
I’ve gotten a lot out of blogging. While the most important thing I get is self-satisfaction, it’s equally rewarding to meet great people from all over the world. One thing I can’t complain about is getting the spoils that come with being a tech-related blogger. Like many bloggers recently, I got an interesting email from Sprint. Apparently they liked my blog and invited me into the Sprint Ambassador program where I get a Samsung A920 cellphone and unlimited phone and data services completely free for 6 months. No catch. While this phone lets you watch TV on the go, I don’t know if I really want all that. I hate cell phones (since I don’t really talk to people that much), but I love my Tmobile Sidekick to death. Screw the Blackberries and Treos, the Sidekick is really a poor blogger’s best friend.Word to Sprint: You didn’t ask for it, but there, my complimentary plug for you.Word to Tmobile: I could use the Sidekick III when it comes out! *hint hint*

Currently Thinking
Years ago, when I first started blogging, it was really for me to keep track of my intellectual egotistical life. As time went by, I started discovering communities I could be part of which extended my reach and capacity as a blogger. I conversed with others who were into Macs, those tracking the Web 2.0 scene, as well as fellow people back in Singapore sharing opinions on current affairs back home. It was then that my traffic grew and I got quite impressed with the power of blogs. Now as iCheerful best puts it, my clustrmap is totally bloodied (see right bottom sidebar).

If you noticed, this blog reflects a mixed bag of interests. Frankly speaking, I felt that this was a mess but for some reason, people still came back for more. From a professional perspective, I believe having a focus helps build strong readership… but that wouldn’t be real for me. Unless I ran multiple blogs, I wouldn’t be able to cover the multi-faceted beauty of life, be it geeky or otherwise. I’m sure you’d agree that you’ve ran into this crisis before and like many of you, we end up running “me blogs”… documenting all our interests in one place. There is something uniquely synergistic about this mental cocktail of interests, allowing each of our “me blogs” to paint a different color in the great communal graffiti known as the blogosphere.

If you have to take home one thing from me today, it would be that I’ve realized how blogging is about breaking the rules. Just look at every mega-popular blog out there and you’ll see what I mean. Don’t listen to anyone about how blogging should be; do as you see fit and who knows, you could be the next big thing!

Currently Wishing
Since we can dual-boot Mac and Windows XP, I’m just hoping for a smaller MacBook Pro to come out soon. I bet it’s coming in August, which is when WWDC 2006 has been shifted to since it used to be in June.